New members elected to Council are announced at AGM

13 July 2017

Dr Mark Telling has been elected to serve as the IOP’s new vice-president, membership from 1 October 2017 and three other IOP members have been elected to serve as ordinary members of the Institute’s Council from that date.

The results were announced at the Institute’s AGM today, when it was also confirmed that Jonathan Flint had been elected unopposed as the Institute’s new president-elect and Professor Brian Fulton had been elected unopposed as the new honorary secretary, both to serve from 1 October.

The three new ordinary members of Council will be Professor Wendy Flavell, who received 1,379 votes; Dr June McCombie, who received 699 votes; and Professor Anne Tropper, who received 612 votes. Nineteen candidates stood in the election and a total of 2,851 members voted. Professor Jim Al-Khalili is to join the IOP's Council as a co-opted member.

In the election for vice-president, membership 2,619 members voted and Telling received 1,227 votes – 46.8% of the total. The other candidates were Ian Scott and Vladimir Vishnyakov.

The IOP’s president, Professor Roy Sambles, who was chairing the meeting, thanked the three ordinary members whose time on Council comes to an end on 30 September – Dr Michael Duncan, Dr Barbara Gabrys and Professor John Zarnecki. He also thanked Professor Stuart Palmer, who has served as honorary secretary for the past eight years and Dr Mike Worboys, who has been vice-president, membership for the past four years, both of whom also end their period in office on 30 September.

At the AGM, Palmer introduced the Institute’s annual report and highlighted some of the work that the IOP has done in relation to its five strategic themes: education, discovery, society, economy and community. The meeting agreed to adopt the report and also to adopt the annual accounts.

The AGM also passed a resolution proposed by the IOP’s Council that “subject to such minor modifications as may be required by the Privy Council, the existing Bylaws of the Institute shall be replaced by the new Bylaws”, with 97% in favour.

The Institute’s honorary treasurer, Professor Julian Jones, said that BDO LLP had been the IOP’s auditors for the past 13 years. In accordance with good governance procedures and taking into account the increasing complexity of the IOP group. the IOP’s Audit and Risk Committee had undertaken a bidding process for new auditors and had recommended that PriceWaterhouseCoopers should be appointed. A resolution from Council proposing the change was approved with 94% in favour.